Boulequiroule, 1968-1974

Ou l'architecture de l'apesanteur dans la pesanteur

Guy Rottier drew inspiration from space capsules when rethinking the way a cylindrical space floating on water can be occupied. “If we unfold the cube in which we live, we can see that we only occupy one surface out of the six surfaces available. Spatial studies have opened up new perspectives for us: in particular the occupation of all the surfaces of a volume, and the end of the idea of vertical, horizontal, north or south, among others. Therefore, one can ask if it is not possible to simply live on earth, but with the ideas of the sky. And we observe that the solutions are numerous and can range from the child’s bedroom in the form of a bubble to the caravan swiveling on its axis, from the swiveling volume to the cylindrical garage car park” Guy Rottier explains. To immobilize the Boulequiroule, a Plexiglass bubble of approximately three meters in diameter and floating on 20 cm of water, the level of the water only has to be lowered by a few centimeters. In Rottier’s projects the extreme ingenuity of envisaged technical solutions are always combined with the colorful nature of his proposals. This is what led Michel Ragon to declare: “There’s a bit of the do-it-yourselfer in him, like the participants in the Lépine Competition, as well as the Dadaist provocateur.”